


Life is Strange: Failure to Develop

by BootlegGirl1 (orphan_account)



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Life Is Strange Spoilers, Life Is Strange: Before The Storm Spoilers, M/M, Multi, Other, Post-Canon, Rewind Powers (Life Is Strange), Sequel, Sexual Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 07:14:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14732342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/BootlegGirl1
Summary: Six months after the tragic death of Chloe Price, Max Caulfield has lost the ability to alter time. She coasts through her last days at Blackwell Academy, trying to forget the past - but when she receives a mysterious message and the ground begins to shake, she fears that the consequences of her actions in alternate timelines may not have been fully prevented by Chloe's sacrifice. In an effort to prevent another catastrophe, Max begins investigating the history of the Prescott family and the Vortex club, with  the help of Brooke and Warren. Rachel Amber's biological mother Sarah Gearhardt has also returned to town, and Victoria Chase has returned to her old scheming ways - or so it seems. Meanwhile, David Madsen's pile of secrets begins to destroy his already-fraught relationship with Joyce.(Fan sequel/"season two" of Life is Strange. Re: content warnings, sexual violence is referenced only in relation to the Dark Room and will not be excessively dwelled upon.)





	Life is Strange: Failure to Develop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five months after Chloe's death, Max receives a mysterious text message - and the ground shakes. Then, a foreboding invitation reminds her of her time travel powers - powers that she no longer possesses. Desperate to find answers, Max seeks help from Warren, who has also received a mysterious message.

#### Friday, March 7, 2014

##### Max Caulfield's Diary

> Today was ~~relaxing~~ ~~shit~~ _~~shit like it always is~~_ five months since it happened. Also, the first time I've managed to force myself to write in this diary at all, because I'm a ~~loser who can't move on from trauma like the fucking grief counselor said~~ ~~_fucking piece of shit who let you die_~~.
> 
> Let's try again. Chloe, this is for you. I'm sorry. ~~not that you care, you're dead. must be nice.~~ I'd like to say it's been nice, that it's been good for me, but it hasn't. You'd probably punch me for saying this, but it feels like my life ended in that bathroom too. Every night, I try not to think about using that photo. I try to think I ripped it up. ~~Sometimes I wish I could convince myself none of it was real, but I remember what you said to me, and I _won't_ do that.~~ But then I come crashing back to reality. And then, I - how would Victoria put it - pop a Xanny? You'd be disappointed in me, it's not even illegal - I medicate my anxiety away with a pill. I know, I know, it'd be cooler if I smoked. There's a measure in the legislature to make pot legal, but you have to be 21. Anyway, it wouldn't kick in until next year, and well... I'm not on great terms with Frank. So, alprazolam it is for me.
> 
> I'm applying to college. My mom and dad really want me to come back home to Seattle, because of ~~the whole thing where you got your guts blown out on the bathroom wall and I totally knew about it but they don't know I knew and no one knows because no one would believe me because I'm way crazier than they think I am and by the way I can't rewind anymore so did any of it even happen~~ what happened. University of Washington is good, but I've also got applications in at Wellesley and Evergreen. I know I'm in at U of W, but I'm waiting on the others. I don't know where I want to go. I don't even know _if_ I want to go.
> 
> ~~_"Without you, the poetry within me is dead"_ wow Max that's pretentious even for you, go fuck your XXXXX~~
> 
> So. Fun. There's that! We have science classes at Blackwell, like, a lot of them, they hired a new science teacher, Mr. Anderson ~~with the big surplus in the school budget labeled "photography", btw have I mentioned I don't take photos anymore cuz I didn't hey in this universe you don't even know why did you know my favorite teacher is a serial killer and also you would have thought he was hot if you'd met him which I never ever think about even though I'm thinking about it right now~~ and he seems cool. This semester I have first period physics with Mrs. Grant, second period free, third period English with Mr. Keaton, and fourth period computer science with Mrs. Jiang. I can't really tell you much about them, because to be honest I haven't been paying attention. I would say it's senioritis, but let's be honest it's the ~~guilt and constant memories of how I fucking killed failed you~~ post traumatic stress disorder. Which is official, by the way! It's on my charts. ~~back to the xanax for a moment the thing i hate most is how for like half an hour if i take two i almost feel nothing when i think about what i did~~
> 
> So hey, that's great! Incidentally, how's being dead ~~because of me, the worst girlfriend ever~~?

##### Arts Classroom, First Period

Max shivered from the cold - it felt colder than usual outside, and the cold had followed her in. She hated this period, hated the room more than anything. Everything had been torn down, of course - no more photographs on the walls. Now a cartoon portrait of Shakespeare hung where five months ago an advertisement for the Everyday Heroes Contest had sat, taunting Max through time and space. Mr. Keaton lectured awkwardly; Max wondered if he felt some fraction of what she did in here. She barely paid attention; her laptop, electrical tape carefully placed across the webcam, was opened with an Evernote tab - empty. Words had once seemed to flow from Max's hand like a river, but now, focus was an alien prospect.

"Literature," Mr. Keaton said, "is more than just text on a page. Shakespeare is one of the most famous writers in the English language, but the vast majority of the work he created that was just written down on paper was never intended for anyone else to read. His plays might be _written_ on a page, but they quite literally leap off of that page, and into reality, when they are performed." Max looked around the room - Victoria was taking notes, but most everyone else seemed unsure what to write. What was the takeaway of this point?

Daniel DaCosta's hand, uncharacteristically, shot up in the air. Mr. Keaton seemed surprised, and the already prolonged moment of silence went on a bit longer, before he gestured in Daniel's direction, while also noting the quite detailed portrait Daniel was in the process of drawing. "Yes, Mr. DaCosta?"

"Does that mean that we can analyze graphic novels as literature?" Mr. Keaton looked frustrated, but he nodded.

"While many look down on graphic novels - comic books -" he gestured to the rest of the class as if to suggest that no one was as nerdy as Daniel - "there have been some quite acclaimed works of literature. _Watchmen i_ s a notable examination of moral crisis. _Blue is the Warmest Color_ is an exploration of... coming of age. And both of them have something in common: like Shakespeare's plays, they've jumped from the page into the physical world, in this case through film adaptations."

"The Watchmen movie was shit, though," Brooke Scott interjected from the back of the class.

"Indeed, Miss Scott," Mr. Keaton said. "Zak Snyder failed to capture Alan Moore's central thesis - that to compromise morally, as Rohrschach says, 'in the face of oblivion,' is not only abhorrent, but also pointless. Adrian Veight believes that by sacrificing the city of New York to a monster - or in the case of the film, simply a natural disaster - he can save the entire human species, but in the comic this evil decision is demonstrated to be clearly wrong. Snyder's film suggests a 'happily ever after' for everyone - except, of course, Veight's victims - that the comic warns us would never happen."

Max typed her first note for the class:

`"do not read Watchmen."`

Mr. Keaton resumed lecturing, and for a moment, something about his gestures, his mannerisms, caused him, in the corner of Max's eye, to look like someone different for a moment. Just a moment. Max tried to forget the moment where Keaton had seemed to possess a familiar stubble, where his jacket for just a moment looked like another one.

Her phone buzzed. She feared for a moment that Keaton would stop the lecture, call her out, trigger another cascade of memories of a moment she'd already lived too many times, but he didn't even spare an annoyed glance. She slowly reached down and took it out of her bag. Mr. Keaton continued talking - "what today you call a 'cinematic universe' dates all the way back to the Bible, which is, like the Avengers, a composite of many mythical figures -" and pacing across the room. Max looked down at the phone's lock screen.

202-555-0136. Not a contact.

`"do not answer the invite. do not go tonight."`

Somehow, the chill from outside went all the way through to Max's bones. This text made no sense, and it read exactly like something she herself had written, sitting in this very seat...

Max raised her hand, and once again, Keaton paused. "Yes, Max?"

"Mr. Keaton, I haven't read _Watchmen_ , but you said that someone's plan to save the world was doomed to fail. Why is that, exactly?"

"Well, I'm not sure if it's worth getting into the particulars of a graphic novel's plot," said the man who had been rambling for the past ninety seconds about the plots of various graphic novels and also the Bible. "But, the short version is that the truth, in this case, is deadly. Adrian Veight's plan to destroy New York City to, in his mind, save the world only works if no one knows that he, and not an actual alien force, did it. And he has the character Rohrschach killed, to cover it up. But the plan is not air tight, because Rohrschach has sent information out in the form of his journal. The novel leaves it unclear if anyone takes the journal seriously or dismisses it as a conspiracy theory, but either way, it has an effect on the world. It keeps Veight from being infallible and perfect, as he wants to be seen, and like the poetic Ozymandias he named himself after, his works are doomed to crumble as a result. In any case, back to Shakespeare -"

 _Doomed to crumble_ , Max thought. She knew precisely the reason for the stabbing pain in her chest, and it was nothing physical.

 _Letting Chloe die was supposed to close the loop. Make sure nothing actually changed. But I came back here, before I went to the bathroom, and sent David a text._ She had never heard anything from David about it - except for one brief, unpleasant, and awkward visit she hadn't seen Joyce or David since the funeral. Even if he did read it, he wouldn't know it had been from her. And it didn't matter anyway, because all it did was inform him slightly before everyone else about what really went on beneath the Prescotts' barn. But that meant that David knew that someone knew, that someone had information they couldn't possibly have had -

 _I am Ozymandias_ , Max thought. Trembling slightly, she revised her Evernote entry.

##### Boy's Dormitory, after fourth period

Max hammered on Warren's door. "Open up in there!"

"I'm coming!" Warren said. He opened the door, and immediately she felt the nervousness radiating from him. She remembered him asking her to the drive-in, even though he never did. She remembered almost kissing him.

She remembered him giving her a chance to save Chloe, and her throwing it away. _To save him and everyone else,_ she protested to herself, but it didn't feel like it mattered.

"What's up?" Warren asked. "Haven't seen you around here in... forever!"

"I.. guess I needed to see a friend, is all," Max said, even though it very much was not all.

"Well come on in, Maxster!" Warren said, gesturing to his messy room filled with relics of geek culture. " _Mi casa es su casa" Warren's affected friendliness made Max want to punch him, and she knew that was absolutely because he was acting like they both did... before. _I never used to hate cheesy cliches,__ Max thought. She entered the room and sat down on the bed, uninvited. She glanced around, noting a minimized browser window on Warren's desktop reading "Arcadia Bay Magnet School Administrators Respond to -"

 _He knows I don't read the news because I'll see articles like that._ And yet Max was here to... begin... to broach the subject they were avoiding, the subject that Warren only knew a tiny dimension of.

_After an extended silence, Max spoke. "I got a weird text. Kinda creeped me out."_

_"That does sound creepy!" Warren said. "Anyone I know send it?"_

_"I don't know," Max said. "It was from a number I've never seen before."_

_"What'd it say?"_

_You have to trust somebody, Max thought. She opened her phone and angled it toward Warren._

_"Do not answer invite. Do not go tonight," Warren read. A strange expression crossed his face. "I don't know who sent it, but I think I know what it's about. Max, have you checked your mail today? Like, your actual, physical mail?"_

_"I haven't had the chance to run by the mailroom, why?"_

_"I want to know if you got what I got," Warren said. "Come on, let's go check your mail."_

_"Warren, why are you acting so strange?"_

_"Because something is strange, Max. And I don't want to go off half-cocked. I need to know what you got in the mail, but I think I know what the text is saying." Max paused, then shrugged._

_"Lead the way, dude."_

##### Blackwell Dormitory Mailroom, Evening

 _I guess I should check to see if Evergreen got back to me or not,_ Max thought, as if she had to justify going downstairs to check her mail. And yet everything did feel like it needed justification somehow these days - like all of it _wasn't_ justified. She wanted to take a Xanax, but the bottle was in her room and she'd taken three the previous night - too many, according to the prescription. _Need to conserve them for when things get really bad,_ she thought, as she walked up to her mailbox, #106, and began turning the lock. Warren stood behind her, with his own mail behind his back - she'd caught a glimpse of a blue envelope and a card.

And there they were - both things. A letter from Evergreen University, and a blue postcard envelope addressed to "Miss Maxine Caulfield" in typewritten text. Somehow, only that envelope felt like it mattered - Evergreen could go to hell, regardless of what they said.

"So you did get one," Warren said.

"If you mean _another_ creepy message, this time the low-tech variety? Yeah, I got one of those." She turned the envelope over.

"Funny, yours is actually sealed," Warren said. "Mine wasn't, it was taped shut, like someone had already opened it."

"What is this, some kind of darknet drug deal?" Max said.

"Open it and let's see." Max sighed in exaggerated frustration, and opened the envelope. She pulled out a white card with generic blue flowers... and a butterfly. She felt, again, as if she had been stabbed in the gut.

"What the fuck is this?" she said, looking at Warren. "Let me see yours!"

"Fine, here it is," Warren said, handing her his card - red flowers, no butterfly. _No way that's a coincidence._ "Max, I know this is kind of weird, but you seem _really_ freaked out by this. You haven't even read the cards, either of them, yet. And you read _everything_ you see." She glared at him, then opened the red card.

In the same typewriter font as Max's envelope, it read:

`Dear Mr. Graham,`

`Your presence is humbly requested on the evening of March 7, 2014, at the Old Mill outside Arcadia Bay, at 10 o'clock P.M. for a meeting concerning pressing matters. `

`With great appreciation,  
An Interested Party`

Max said nothing, but with shaking hands opened her own card.

`Dear Miss Caulfield,`

`Your presence is humbly requested on the evening of March 7, 2014, at the Old Mill outside Arcadia Bay, at 10 o'clock P.M. for a meeting concerning pressing matters. Be sure to be on time, and always be mindful of the weather.`

`Most sincerely,  
An Interested Party`

_Whoever this is knows,_ Max knew with a crushing certainty. "On time." Referencing the weather. _No one else even saw the storm. No one saw it but me. It never happened._ And yet here they were.

"So..." Warren interjected, breaking the agonizing silence. "Yours is an invite too, right?"

"Yeah," Max said. "But it... said some other stuff too."

"Other stuff?"

"Never mind that now, I see what you mean. The text is telling me not to go to the meeting. Someone knows this got sent."

"Maybe it was the original sender," Warren said. "Change of plans?" Another pause. "Look, Max, I know this is probably hard -"

"Oh, you think it's fucking hard, Warren? Yes, it's fucking hard, to get creepy anonymous messages exactly five months after the day your best friend was shot to death by an apprentice serial killer!" Max was trembling, and she knew it was because she wasn't saying anywhere close to all she wanted to say.

"Yeah, I mean, I didn't want to get that blunt, but -"

"You don't understand shit, Warren!" Max said. "There's shit that went down that you would not believe, shit nobody else knows about. Except this fucking person who's sending me letters."

"You might be surprised by what I might believe," Warren said. For a moment, actually telling him seemed like a good idea - and then it passed. _Even Chloe made me prove it to her, over and over again,_ Max thought. _Warren's a nerd but even in the middle of the storm, he barely believed me when I asked him for my Polaroid._ She then added, _in another world which totally never happened._

"I'm going to the meeting, I don't listen to creepy shitheads who send anonymous texts," Max said.

"If you're going, I'm going," Warren said. "Max, you need a friend - and I'm with you all the way."

"I had a friend, Warren. She was shot in the chest, her guts flew out and we stuck her in the ground."

"And for all we know, this could be another Nathan or another Mr. Jefferson!" Warren said. "I'm not letting you go into something like that without backup."

"Letting me? Warren, I'm pretty sure you used to sneak up on my window and watch me while I slept. You're lucky I 'let you' talk to me."

Warren was silent at that for a long time. Finally, he spoke, apologetically. "Max, I guess you're right. I don't know how hard this is for you. I've wanted to be there for you these past months, but, maybe you don't want me there. And that's fine. Just... this really is weird stuff and you really shouldn't -"

"What was that?" Max said suddenly.

"What?"

Max felt a bit queasy suddenly, and this time, it wasn't nerves. Something was happening beneath her. The ground trembled, and suddenly she found herself falling. Warren reached out to catch her, narrowly stopping her from landing on her right arm. The tremors continued for a few more seconds.

"Whoa," Warren said. "Haven't had a quake for a while."

"Yeah," Max said. _Ozymandias's diary. Information got out._ "Not for a while." Max tried her best to put on a brave face, then she turned and walked toward the stairs. "You still got that dorky car, right?"

"You bet, Max."

"Then I'll see you at 9:30? Drive out to the mill together?"

"I'll be there. But -"

"But what, Warren? What else is there?"  
"Max, I think whoever opened my letter also put this in there." He held out a set of white sheets, glistening in the air. _Oh fuck my selfie,_ Max thought involuntarily. _Polaroid. They know._ She pushed them back at Warren.  
"I'm going to the meeting, but I'm not touching that shit, Warren."  
"Max, there has to be a reason they'd give me Polaroid film. I don't use it, so it had to be to give to you -"  
"Yeah, I get that, Warren. I only got my camera back from the police last month, it was evidence, you get that? Why in the hell would I touch that thing?"  
"I'm not saying you should. Just -"  
"Whatever," Max said. She stormed up the stairs to the dorm, leaving Warren silently holding a stack of unexposed Polaroids.

##### The Old Mill, 9:45 P.M.

Warren parked his car at an old abandoned lot not far from the train tracks. "You ever been out here, Max?" he asked. Max had stopped shaking, managed to compose herself for just a moment. In her room she had, for a moment, let her guard down entirely, broken the promise she'd made to herself, reached out with her hands and... tried to go backwards. Nothing had happened. Time continued to move forward, one second at a time. At least that part of her reality remained consistent. And yet there was a certain thrill to all of this - exploring an unknown place, with a friend, again.

"No, I haven't," she said. "I heard there were, like, illegal concerts or something here?"

"Yeah, that's what I heard," Warren said. "Not that I was ever cool enough to get an invite or anything. But they found a body near here a few years back, shut the whole thing down I guess."

"Wait, a body? Warren, why would you not tell me about a body out here?"

"It wasn't... the kind of thing you're thinking. Was a drug related thing I guess."

"Rachel Amber was a 'drug related thing' too, Warren."

"I mean like a dealer or something, though. Killed in some sort of turf war."

"Still might have been useful to know before we came to some kind of Dumbledore's Army meetup in the middle of the woods, dude."

"Okay, sorry. But yeah, that's all I know - local biker gangs used to do shit here, run bars that served underagers. Then some guy turned up dead, so they stopped." _Another dead person in basically a barn,_ Max thought. Uncomfortable _deja vu_ was becoming the primary emotion she felt. 

"Let's look around at least before whoever we're meeting shows up," Max said, opening the door and stepping out of Warren's vehicle. They walked across the railroad tracks together, and for a moment she remembered something else that never happened. She and Warren approached the decrepit mill, walking past a rotted old bus and some equally decayed farm machinery. "Doesn't look like much." She noted a familiar set of graffiti symbols on the side of the barn. "Can we get inside?" 

"Not sure," Warren said, then grinned slightly. "Wanna find out?"

Her grim resolve was replaced, for at least a moment, by a desire to embrace this moment, to enjoy it with Warren - to enjoy life. _Because I get to,_ the little voice in her head said. She punched it, mentally, in the face, and reached into her bag.

"Hey Warren," she said. "You keep that film?"

Warren grinned, and this time it was genuine. "Hell yeah. You got your camera?" Max reached into her bag and pulled out the old thing. It felt heavier than it was in her hand. "For old time's sake - just give me a second." She took the film from Warren and inserted it awkwardly into the camera. "Kinda dark," she said as she finally got it in place. "Let's find out if the flash still works."

 _Snap._ The flash captured them in the half-moonlight, and a photo slid out. It was too dark to examine it fully, so she just shook it, and then grinned at Warren. "Let's check this place out!"

She walked up to the door that clearly had once served as the main entrance, and saw immediately that a padlock had been crudely sawed off.

"Someone was already here," Warren said. 

"Shit," Max said. Unable to resist the compulsion to investigate further, she opened the door, even as images of a barn with a rusted tractor and straw masking what lay beneath flashed in front of her eyes. 

The building was empty - an old loft was in a state of critical decay, with a chain ineffectually barring the staircase leading upwards. Various equipment - saws, whose teeth seemed to grin eerily at Max - hung throughout the building. Something caught her eye - one large saw blade was different from the others. She moved cautiously closer, and as she did, she felt a punch to the gut even stronger than the earthquake earlier.

Upon the sawblade in bright white paint were the words "I See U Saw" in a frighteningly familiar graffiti style. 

"Chloe was here," Max said out loud. Warren's face dropped.

"Max, I - I mean, it makes sense she would have come here, it was -"

"It was her sort of thing. I actually knew my actual best friend, Warren."

"I know, I was just saying -"

"What, that you knew her better than me because I was out of town when she first started going to parties and shit? I promise you, dude, you do not know Chloe Price better than me."

"That's not what I meant. I just - I think I heard her talk about this place, now that I think about it. I think this is where she met Rachel."

"...the fuck, dude. How do you keep just _remembering_ information like that?"

"I don't know, Max, sometimes my memory isn't consistent, all right? Like you said, she was your best friend, you probably know her better, but events were a bit different from my point of view!"

"You have no... IDEA... about -" Max caught herself mid-breath - an engine kicked in the near-distance, then stopped.

"Someone else is here," Warren said. "Do we hide?"

"It's a meeting, Warren," Max said. "Let's go meet them."

When Max and Warren stepped into the night air, no one was immediately visible - but then, they heard the sound of footsteps. A familiar face, barely recognizable in the darkness.

"Oh. It's you," Frank Bowers said. "I should have known. You send the fucking letter?" Frank was even more disheveled than usual; his pitbull companion Pompadou did not accompany him.

"No," Max said. She lunged toward him, and unlike he would have - did - in the past, Frank made no move to resist Max putting her hands on him. "You know _anything_ about this place? About the letters? About Chloe?"

"I know a lot," Frank said. "I don't think you want to know all of it -"

"But I do," said an unfamiliar voice. A tall man who immediately struck Max as resembling a skinnier, younger Martin Sheen, and a harried-looking woman, approached. The man put his hand forward. "I know all of you. Max, I don't think we've met."

"You send the letter?" Frank interrupted accusingly. "This some kind of entrapment thing?"

"I haven't been involved in law enforcement for over a year, Mr. Bowers," the man said. "Besides, I hear you've... reformed." He turned back to Max. "Max, it's good to finally meet you. My name is James Amber."

 _Nothing can surprise me at this point,_ Max thought. "It's... nice to meet you, Mr. Amber."

"And I'm Rose Amber," the woman's said, extending her hand after Max shook James's. 

"You're... Rachel Amber's parents." It wasn't a question. The "I'm sorry" was unspoken but hung in the air.

"One of them is." The interruption came as another figure emerged from a side entrance to the mill. _They were in there the whole time,_ Max thought, on the edge of panic. The interloper approached, and her face, aged and aching, seemed to jump out at Max like one of her old selfies. "The other would be her _step-_ mother."

"Sarah," James said, a look of fear on his face. "Max, this is Sarah Gearhardt, she is -"

" _She is_ a dead girl's biological mother who stayed away far too long," the strange woman said. "Max Caulfield?" Max nodded. "And Warren Graham?"

"Uh, here?" Warren said, nervously, almost as if it was a question. "I assume _you_ sent the invitations?"

"I did," Sarah said. She moved forward slowly, cautiously, looking back and forth at everyone. "Well, if we're all here, then I suppose it's time to kick things off. Light a fire, you might say." 

Max barely had time to begin to scream. Sarah Gearhardt moved her left hand from behind her into full view, finger on the trigger of a pistol. She raised it in a sharp jerk motion, bringing the barrel into direct physical contact with Warren's forehead.

The chunk of black matter that emerged from the back of Warren's head was not even a foot away when it froze in midair. Max was reaching out even as she screamed, and the scream went backwards. Warren's head reassembled, the pistol went back behind Sarah's back, and then things moved forward again.

"Don't do it!" Max shouted, interrupting the end of Sarah's final word.

"Well then," Sarah said, glancing at Warren, who looked on with confusion but without fear. "Good to know you're... back in focus, Max Caulfield."


End file.
